I went to a football school, which meant that I went to a university that served up education and was simultaneously operating a sports franchise.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

There's a special quality to the loneliness of dusk, a melancholy more brooding even than the night's.

For tho' from out our bourne of time and place The flood may bear me far I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar.

If there's a God why are there such things as famine and The Jerry Springer Show.

The sad thing about any business I suppose, but in mine you see it particularly, is that you're always asked to do what you've already done.

Just wait and see, Charlie Brown. I'll see the Great Pumpkin. I'll SEE the Great Pumpkin! Just you wait, Charlie Brown. The Great Pumpkin will appear and I'll be waiting for him.

For the believer, humility is honesty about one's greatest flaws to a degree in which he fearless about truly appearing less righteous than another.

Anybody who's ever had the privilege of seeing me play knows that I am the greatest pitcher in the world.

When I do a film, usually I work from my director. That's my boss. The director is interpreting the writer's vision, and we all interpret it, and they create their own vision as well.

When young, you're shocked by the number of people who turn out to have feet of clay. Older, you're surprised by the number of people who don't.

I have turned down playing the most despicable people on Earth. I turn it down all the time.